From the Publisher
SellingYour Magazine in
an Anarchist Bookstore
By Alfred Underhill
changes afoot. For a number of years, we’ve ran Unnamed Journal like your
B staff ig favorite
aunt’s charity - largely as an excuse to drink spritzer and make the
uncomfortable. But through all this, we’ve kept putting the thing out. Issue ou walk in through one of the double doors. Looking around the shop, you see a run of the
Y
mill bakery and cafe with vaulted ceilings.You're inside an anarchist's cafe.You know this
because of the name of the place etched onto the side of the building; anarchists, like vegans,
after Issue, volume after volume, hangover after hangover, we’ve never missed a
deadline. Sure, we’ve adjusted them, even completely ignored them, but never
missed one.That’s just the kind of people we are. will almost always self-identify.
And because we’re those kind of people, we’ve decided to push this magazine to
the next level. It’s time to have a podcast, so we have one, Shallow & Pedantic,
three episodes in. It’s time to have a Patreon, and before this month is out, we’ll
have that, too. It’s time to have a platform to sell our wares, and we’ll be
launching a bookstore on Gumroad around the time of the next issue in July.
The practical upshot of which is this you hold in your digital hands is the last free
issue of Unnamed Journal. Henceforth, to read our works, you’ll either need to be
a Patreon subscriber, or you’ll need to purchase from our bookstore direct.
We’ll have that information on our Facebook page shortly.
Nor is that all.Very soon we’ll be opening up UJ to submissions.We’re not
exactly The Atlantic, but the plan is to pay writers for their work as well. UJ has
always been the Little Magazine That Could, Despite Its Best Efforts, so we want
to expand it as a market for fledgling writers as well. If you like the strange, silly,
and surprising, you’ll probably be a good fit for these pages as well.
Now to this issue: we have a fifth chapter of The Meditations of Caius Caligulia, a
journey into the heart of Revolution! in Selling Your Magazine in an Anarchist
Bookstore, a mystical Chronicle ofWandering in the Dao, and another Drunk Vampire
Hunter Story, April is the ____est Month.
Enjoy.
Thomas Fitz
Publisher
You've been in here before.You drank some fair-trade coffee, ate a vegan scone.The coffee was
good, but other than that, the experience was unremarkable.You browsed their book selection
and found an intentional exercise in obscurity.
But you're not a customer today. No.Today, you're here on business.Your business, in fact.Your
gaze drifts to the left, where the bookstore portion of the anarchist collective's enterprise is
located.You walk over to the counter. A disinterested man with a beard-symbiote stares
balefully into a computer monitor.You say something like, "Excuse me, sir?"
The man curses under his breath.You can't tell if he's displease by what he sees on the monitor,
or if it's you, trying to ask him a question. He says, "Sorry. Can you hang on a minute? I need
to go talk to Pork Neck about this" he gestures to the monitor facing him.You watch him walk
briskly to the back of the store and vanish through the 'employees only' door.
You don't know what the "this" is that he was referring to, nor do you know whom Pork Neck
is either.You're befuddled, yet you continue standing there.While you wait, you look around
at the other denizens of the shop.
You spy a blank-faced barista sporting a knit cap, churning out drink orders as they come.You
note that the cafe checkout clerk makes no attempt to hide the falseness of his cheer.The line
of customers runs the gamut, but none of them look particularly remarkable to you. At the
tables, you see a few small groups engaged in conversation. As near as you can tell, the rest of
the cafe's patrons are absorbed in their phones or laptops, taking full advantage of the freeWi-
Fi.
Is this the revolution?You think to yourself, as your gaze drifts toward the window. Outside you
see a bicyclist narrowly avoid an opening car door.The owner of the car promptly gets out
and screams obscenities, aggressively brandishing her middle finger.You turn your attention
back indoors, towards the rear of the shop.
You see the man and his symbiote emerge through the 'employees only' portal. He's trailed by
another man that has an excess of skin around his throat. This must be Pork Neck, you muse.The
pair walk back over to the counter, ignoring you, to stare grimly into the monitor.